


Helen of Troy

by XaviaAndromedovna



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Drowning imagery, Existential Crisis, F/M, Internalized Transphobia, Marijuana, Misgendering, Rom-Com Tropes, Self-Misgendering (happens to the best of us sweetie take your time), Toxic Masculinity, Trans Female Character, because i'm nothing if not predictable, childish tycoon, no beta we die like men, referenced Nana Barnes, references to The Crying Game, sir this is my emotional support trans headcanon, these two? in love? it's more likely than they think!, trans!Troy, way too many opinions about Greek mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27076645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XaviaAndromedovna/pseuds/XaviaAndromedovna
Summary: The face that launched a thousand ships launches one more, only this one brings her home.
Relationships: Troy Barnes & Britta Perry, Troy Barnes & LeVar Burton, Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 20
Kudos: 64





	Helen of Troy

**Author's Note:**

> listen, I know I'm supposed to be grading or editing lectures, but sometimes you just have to get the trans girl feels out before you can process life. anywho, damn near every time I type Troy's name I accidentally type 'Tory', and it birthed a plot bunny and now there's this, I'll see myself out. obviously this is one of many possible trans narratives and some of us don't like the trope of the 'old us' dying but sometimes that's just how it feels. but yeah tl;dr Troy's a trans woman, thank you for coming to my TEDTalk

The ringing in his ears gradually starts to drown out Mr. Stone. “I’d like to give you a chance to do what I never did: become your own man.”

It’s impossible to think with Pierce’s final words to him looping in his mind and Jeff explaining his options and the bewildered stares of his friends and the momentous decision before him. His brain has become a confused, staticky nothing. It’s not his brain that answers the call, but a force diffused throughout his entire body, settled deep in the tissues of his organs, calling quietly but desperately for him to take the offer, take it before the window of opportunity closes. “I’ll do it.” When his brain finally does restore functionality, it processes the urgent matter of Troy having just agreed to _sail around the world_. It gropes for an explanation his sinews refuse to provide. “Pierce was a crazy old coot, yeah, but I think he knew something about me that even I didn’t know until now. Because he’s offering me something I’ve been searching for my whole life. Millions of dollars. …And being a man or whatever he said.”

 _Or whatever_ , his bones rattle in agreement.

~~~

The study group is the best thing that ever happened to him. Sure, they’re dysfunctional wrecks most of the time, and the majority of the school not-so-secretly hates them. But he wouldn’t be the person he is today without them. Annie’s the reason he botched the keg flip and ended up at Greendale. Well that and some well-timed fro-yo. Now she’s one of the best roommates anyone could ask for. Shirley taught him that compassion and ambition aren’t mutually exclusive, that however many times your life crumbles around you, you have to have faith you’ll get through. Britta is the best ex-girlfriend ever; he’s sad he couldn’t make it work with her, but it’s made their friendship that much stronger.

When he came to Greendale he was obsessed with learning how to be a man, a real man, not a boy. Instead Pierce taught him many ways NOT to be a man, as did Jeff. Pierce showed him the dead end of his insecurities, now literally. His dying wish is for Troy to learn how to be his own man, something he could never do. Jeff showed him men are just boys who are old enough to drink. But Pierce also took him in when his dad kicked him out. And Jeff, he was the father Troy wished he had. He’ll never forget that time Jeff talked him—well, Troy-pretending-to-be-Abed—through his breakup with Britta in the supply closet that always seems to be the scene of Troy’s deepest revelations. Those moments he felt the most lost, Pierce and Jeff believed he had potential.

And Abed… In high school they had to read _A Separate Peace_. Gene and Finny were clearly gay, so the analogy doesn’t quite work, but Finny is Abed to a T. Abed couldn’t care less what anyone thought about him, and even when he did he never let it stop him from getting what he wanted. Abed lived his truth and the world parted around him, and at first it made Troy unbelievably jealous, but he remembered what Gene did to Finny in the book and he vowed that he would never do anything like that to Abed, never let his own insecurities poison their friendship. And in return, Abed introduced Troy to himself. Being with Abed was intoxicating, because when it was just the two of them, Troy never once thought about being a man, he thought about being close to his best friend. Abed always let him cry, always listened intently to his wild thoughts instead of rolling his eyes, always let Troy be exactly who he was when he was it, even when they weren’t themselves at all—especially then. The problem was, it was rarely just the two of them.

He watched himself lose more and more of his identity in Abed, let their relationship stand in for the questions he’d left unanswered. Despite his promises to help, Abed couldn’t teach him how to be a man, because Abed didn’t seem to think Troy even needed to _be_ one. But with nothing to offer in its place, and with Troy’s access to a normal life slipping further and further away, he clung to the only thing he knew. Even when Annie set him up with Britta, when he wasn’t defining himself by his relationship with her, he was defining himself by his relationship with Abed. And that’s why he had to leave.

Well, that and 14.3 million dollars.

He’s in Dubai when he spies a headscarf that looks almost exactly like the fabric of one of the Dean’s dresses. He tries not to think too hard about the Dean, well ever, but especially his… costumes. It’s not that it makes him uncomfortable. Okay maybe a little, but it’s nothing about the Dean himself per se (his creepiness towards Jeff notwithstanding). It’s that Troy watched him slowly become more outlandish, his outfits more elaborate and, well, he saw how happy it seemed to make him, how much more open and comfortable he was. When he’s back on the boat later that night, that’s what really makes him uneasy—that wearing a dress makes the Dean feel empowered and content instead of feeling like everyone is staring too loud or like his stomach has been replaced with eels. Worse, that he shows up dressed like a woman and no one seems concerned or even surprised by it, not even Troy, like it’s expected, like it’s inevitable. Like it’s normal.

Actually, that’s what scares Troy the most—the possibility that some boys grow up and turn out not to be men at all.

~~~

The first time it happened was an accident, an honest mistake for a 6-year-old to make. T-O-R-Y was scrawled across the top of a drawing of his dad fighting a dinosaur. His father thanked him and laughed before good-naturedly correcting him. “It’s T, then R, _then_ O, then Y,” he instructed. “Otherwise it spells Tory, and I think I’d know if I had a daughter.” (Troy learned later that there are in fact plenty of men named Tory, but as far as he and everyone around him knew, Tory was decidedly a girl’s name.) His dad chuckled and grabbed a crayon. “You can remember it this way: ‘a boy named Troy’, it ends with O-Y.” He wrote out Troy’s name then handed him the crayon. “Try it.”

He practiced spelling his name over and over that night, long after his dad had left for work. T-R-O-Y. T-R-O-Y. A boy named Troy, ends with oy. A boy named Troy. A boy named Troy.

~~~

Sometimes when he types too fast, the letters get out of order. It was 2am on a school night sometime in 7th grade the second time it happened, when he quickly added his name to the paper due at 8:15. It wasn’t until he got it back a week later with his name circled that it registered. Joey grabbed his test. “Dude seriously? Is there something you need to tell me?”

Troy suddenly had that feeling he gets sometimes when he thinks about Nana and her switch, or about the time his dad found him dancing along to Britney wearing his blanket on his head. It faded as quickly as it came. “Haha, very funny, dude, I was half asleep.”

Troy tried to grab for it, but Joey was already passing it around to their other friends. “Too late, Tory!”

The other boys started chanting it while he rolled his eyes. “TORY! TORY! TORY! TORY!”

He knew they would only stop if he played along, so that’s what he did. It’s what he’s always done. He blew the boys a kiss. “That’s my name, and the next boy who says it has to date me.” That shut them up quick. He laughed, they laughed, and the moment was forgotten.

He went by T-Bone for the next six years.

~~~

He’s at a crowded Starbucks in London the third time it happens. “TORY?” No one claims the drink. “Venti Caramel Frappuccino for Tory!” He rolls his eyes and steps up to the counter. He doesn’t bother correcting the barista, who smiles politely and goes on with his day. He tunes out whatever LeVar’s saying about the weather and stares at the name on his coffee cup: T-O-R-Y. So close, but not quite. He’s not sure why it bothers him, just that it feels not like a mistake but an accusation, like a narrowly avoided catastrophe. Which is silly because it’s just a coffee cup and, well, he’s survived pirates and shipwrecks and all manner of perils on the high seas. T-O-R-Y. He stares at it for so long he forgets to drink it.

“Troy?” He shoots his head up to find LeVar’s concerned eyes watching him. “Is everything okay?”

They’ve been sailing for a year and a half. An entire 20 months to be exact. He’s seen and done so many things, learned so much about the world and himself—and LeVar—and it’s been amazing. He wouldn’t trade the experience for anything; plus, he’s also only a few countries away from becoming a millionaire. But he feels no closer to finding what he’s looking for. He doesn’t even know what it _is_ , that’s the worst part—just that it’s not here; it’s forever on the horizon, just beyond the curve of the Earth, taunting him. T-O-R-Y. Almost but not quite. He smiles tiredly at LeVar. “Yeah, I’m fine, just tired.” F-I-N-E. That one he knows is spelled correctly.

They decide to stay in London for a few days because why not? LeVar’s freshening up in his hotel room while Troy walks around just to stretch his legs. There’s only so many places to stand on a boat that size. Not a block away from where they’re staying, he sees an empty building on the corner that looks familiar at a certain angle. Which makes sense, seeing as many things are filmed in London, but he figures Abed will know what specific movie he’s thinking of. He snaps a picture and sends it to him. Abed responds right away, which is concerning given it’s probably the middle of the night for him, which Troy always forgets. _What’s the address?_ He sends it to him after a brief glance at his surroundings and not even a minute later Abed replies, _The Crying Game_

_Which one’s that again? Also why are you awake?_

_Can’t sleep; long story involving the Dean, birds, and extended metaphors. It’s the one where the IRA soldier befriends a captive who dies and he vows to watch over the guy’s girlfriend who turns out to be trans. We watched it when we were on that Forest Whitaker kick. You’re at the bar where he met her for the first time._

Oh, _that_ movie. How could he have forgotten that scene where the guy discovers her penis? It made him want to vomit about as much as the main character, but he gets the feeling it’s for a very different reason. Troy remembers thinking she was pretty, and he remembers that even after discovering her secret, the guy stayed with her. He was a jerk about it, but he stayed; he even went to jail for her. She got about as close to a happy ending as she could under the circumstances. _Oh yeah,_ Troy types, _that was gonna bother me, thx!_ He presses send and looks at the building doors absently. A thought occurs to him: _Do you think the two of them stayed together? I mean it’s a long time to be apart, and, well, she’s not his usual type_

Abed doesn’t reply right away, so Troy takes one last glance at the blank façade and walks back to the hotel. His phone buzzes when he gets to his room. _I would hope so, she can absolutely do better than him, but I always thought they were cute together_

Troy smiles. _agreed_

~~~

“Hey LeVar?”

“Yes?”

“What do you think makes someone a man?”

If LeVar’s surprised by this question, he hides it well, though he seems to have long accepted the winding pathways Troy’s brain takes. “Hmmm… that’s a fairly large question, can you be more specific?”

“Like, how did you know you were a man, like what was the moment you first felt like you were truly a _man_?”

They sit in silence looking at the stars while LeVar contemplates the question. “I’m not sure, Troy. I suppose I’ve never really thought about it. I mean, there has to have been some point at which I stopped thinking of myself as a boy and started thinking of myself as a man, but I couldn’t tell you an exact moment.”

“Oh.”

“Why do you ask?”

“No reason, just curious.”

LeVar sits up and looks at him with mild concern. “Troy, I know your ‘just curious’ voice, that’s not it. What’s troubling you?”

“I dunno,” Troy replies, deciding to stand up and watch the water from the railing. It’s less intimidating than having this conversation with his childhood hero face-to-face. “I feel like I’ve been told my whole life, ‘man up’, ‘be a man’, ‘real men do this’, ‘real men do that’. Everyone keeps telling me to become my own man, and I guess I’m wondering how I know when I’ve done that. Like at what point do I look at myself in a mirror and 100% feel like I’m a man?”

“Ah,” LeVar replies sagely. “Well, Troy, as I’m sure you know by now there is no one way to be a man, the only thing you can do is decide the kind of man you want to be.”

“Right but how do I _do_ that?”

LeVar gets up and stands beside him at the railing. “How about this, I’ll tell you what I’ve noticed about the kind of man you are, and you tell me if that’s how you want to be. Would that help?”

“I guess it can’t hurt.”

“You’re kind-hearted. You’re patient, at least with people. Emotionally you’re very perceptive and you freely express your feelings at any given moment.”

“I get it, I cry a lot…”

“Perhaps, but that wasn’t a judgement, that was a compliment. You have a magnificent imagination and an insatiable curiosity. You’re loyal and protective. You’re courageous and optimistic. You’re a joy to be around.” Okay, LeVar fucking Burton complimenting him nonstop was a bad decision, because this is hands-down the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to him and he only has so much space in his brain to process this much praise from him. “Does that sound like the type of man you want to be?”

He sniffles. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Good,” LeVar smiles. “Then you have arrived.”

He certainly feels better, more at peace in himself than he did when he first brought this up. He hugs LeVar, because that’s a thing he can do now. He replays the words in his mind as the sun sets. “You have arrived.” But there’s still one piece bothering him when LeVar heads off to bed: he’s still not sure what any of that has to do with being a _man_.

~~~

He calls Britta from a weed café in Amsterdam, because duh-doy. “So you made it to Europe! How’s that going?”

“Pretty good, I think. I should be back within the year.”

“Wait, really? That’s so exciting!! Let me know when you’re swinging by Greendale, I think I can bust out my party-planning skills for a special occasion. Spoiler alert though, it’ll probably be in the bar where I work.”

“I can’t wait,” Troy chuckles. “I miss you guys a lot.”

“Yeah, us too…” she says cheerily before trailing off. “Umm… hey, you know that like, it’s just me and Jeff still in Greendale, right? Well, and the Dean and Chang, but I mean…”

Right. Shirley’s in Georgia. Annie’s in DC. Abed’s in California. “Yeah, I know. But I have to go there to complete the transfer of funds anyway, plus my parents are there and I should probably show them I’m still alive. And, you know, I _guess_ I could find time to see you and Jeff…”

“You better, you know Jeff would be despondent if you came without saying hi, and then _I’d_ be stuck listening to him bitch about it for the next three weeks because we finally got him to stop drinking alone.”

“How’d you manage that?” He listens to her stories about the group since he left, sad he had to miss them but still grateful he gets to hear about the people he cares most about. “I think I pissed the Dean off with my season seven pitch though, but if we’re sticking to the ‘it’s a TV show’ formula, I think we have a responsibility to provide accurate, quality transgender representation.”

Troy’s throat closes up suddenly. Maybe the smoke is getting to him. He coughs.

“You okay? They’ve probably got the good stuff, don’t they?”

“No complaints, breathing’s just complicated sometimes.” He sips his drink as Britta laughs. “Hey, umm… how much do you know about trans people, anyway?”

“Probably not as much as I should. Why?”

Suddenly Troy remembers that pot gives you delayed reaction times, because in retrospect asking Britta about this was a really bad idea. Because she _will_ pry and he _will_ have to talk about feelings. Which might be exactly why his traitorous brain did it. “I don’t know, I’ve just been thinking about it recently, I don’t know much about it either.”

“Any reason in particular, or is this just somewhere your brain wandered?”

The urgency he felt when Pierce bequeathed him the boat returns and begs him to answer truthfully. “I don’t know, full disclosure I’m pretty high right now, so this probably won’t make sense but like, you know how this whole trip was like to “make me a man” or whatever?”

“I remember Pierce saying something to that effect, yeah.”

“Okay but like, what does that even mean? Like what even is a man? Because honestly the longer I’m on this trip the _less_ I feel like I understand the answer.”

“Hmm, well, I mean gender is a social construct and it’s ultimately arbitrary and a tool used to further colonialism and capitalist heteropatriarchy—“

“Britta.”

“Right sorry, but on the other hand, gender’s something deeply personal. I mean, you know I hate traditional femininity and I’m constantly fighting against oppressive gender norms. But I still feel in my core self that I am a woman. Regardless of whether gender’s a construct, or innate, or both, or neither, at the end of the day, this is how I see myself.”

Oh. His voice sticks in his dry throat when he tries to respond. “Does everyone feel that way?”

“I suppose not,” Britta replies carefully. “Do you feel that way?”

Suddenly, that answer he’s been waiting to find this whole trip, that feeling of arrival, crashes down on him with the full force of the ocean and sweeps him under. At last, Troy is a man, drowned at sea. “No. No, I don’t.”

~~~

When she shares her discovery with LeVar, he is surprised but supportive. “So _that’s_ why you were asking, you literally meant, ‘what makes someone a man’?”

She laughs. “Yeah, I guess so. Don’t worry, I didn’t get it then either.”

“Well, I must say this is certainly not what I was expecting when you walked in here looking like a firing squad was on its way, but I’m proud of you. That couldn’t have been easy to say.”

(LeVar is proud of her.) “Yeah, but please don’t ask too many questions, this is brand new and I definitely have no answers.”

“Fair enough,” LeVar replies, cutting his food. “Though for the sake of practicality, should I still call you Troy for the time being or do you have a name picked out already?”

A name. Ever since her heart-to-heart with Britta this morning (only this morning??), she’s been replaying memories from her life with this new context about herself, and her fears about how everything will go when she inevitably has to tell the people she cares about. But somehow it never occurred to her she’d have to change her name. Well, ‘have to’ is the wrong phrase… she realizes that she isn’t limited to the name Troy anymore, she can call herself anything she wants. She was named after her childhood pets after all, an afterthought; “Troy” was always a placeholder.

She picks the first thing that comes to mind. “Tory.” She winces—nope, close but not quite. “For now, at least. I haven’t really thought about it but until I can pick one, we’ll just go with Tory, it’s easier that way.”

“Alright, Tory it is. So, where to next?”

~~~

They’re halfway through the Northwest Passage (the seasons were in their favour) when her name finally calls to her.

They had stopped in Turkey to see the ruins of the city of Troy, because they could and because history and especially because of the name. They’d latched on to an American tour group because they didn’t actually know all that much about what to look for, and they listened as the tour guide told the story of the city before them. “And in return for Paris awarding Aphrodite the golden apple, Aphrodite gave him Helen of Troy. Now Helen was actually from Sparta, wife of Menelaus, but when Paris brought her to Troy, it kick-started the Trojan War, thus hers is known as ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’.”

She thought about Helen of Troy often after that visit. She was forever associated with a place that never felt like home to her. Forever blamed for the destruction of Troy, a name thrust upon her by forces beyond her control. And as it turns out—she realizes at this moment of epiphany—the _Childish Tycoon_ was also launched across the entire known world in search of a woman, a woman named…

“Helen,” she says, disturbing the tranquil summer air for the first time in several minutes. LeVar looks up at her quizzically. “Helen Victoria Barnes.”

Her constant companion these past couple years, her childhood hero, smiles with a quiet nod. “Nice to meet you, Helen.”

~~~

She dropped her phone in the ocean somewhere around Iceland—this was the third time this happened. She doesn’t replace it until Santa Barbara, the stop before her final port of call. While coming out to Britta and LeVar—because that’s a thing she has to do now (well, she doesn’t _have to_ , but she can’t stand the thought of not telling them eventually)—was mostly uneventful, the thought of telling the others is too much for her to handle just yet. Eventually though, there are no more ports between her and Los Angeles, so she buys yet another phone to call the number she’s been dreading dialing for months, not because she doesn’t want to talk to her best friend, but because if not even Abed can accept her she’s not sure what she’ll do. Realistically, she knows that Abed won’t be a dick about it, but she can never truly know until she says it, and there’s so much riding on this conversation because of the distance and the history and the changes and the silence and oh yeah the part where she’s in love with him—THAT obvious-in-hindsight revelation quickly followed as she was rethinking her entire life and existence—but that’s fine this is fine.

She takes a deep, deep breath and texts the number she full-on memorized years ago, trying to ignore that her message is technically a lie, though a pragmatic one. _Hey Abed, it’s Troy_. She paces along the dock waiting for a response that may never come. It has been a pretty long time. Luckily, the phone starts ringing only five minutes later. “Hey.”

“This is a California area code,” Abed says without preamble, an urgency leaking through his voice.

“Yeah,” Helen responds too nervous to exhale. “Yeah, uhh, I’m in Santa Monica?” Silence. She laughs nervously. “Do you think you could come pick me up?”

“I’m at work but I can be there in 90 minutes, can you wait there that long?”

She sighs in relief. “Yeah, that’s fine, LeVar and I have some paperwork to fill out anyway.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Thanks Abed, sorry for the short notice.”

“If you really think I wouldn’t drop everything to see you now that you’re back just for the trope, let alone how much I missed you, then I may need to test if you’re an imposter. I’ve certainly changed in two years’ time but not _that_ much.”

Right, yes, that. “Actually, umm, there is something I need to tell you before you agree to come see me, because, well, you might not recognize me.”

“Why wouldn’t I recognize you?”

She leans against a wall and closes her eyes. “So, you remember how one of the reasons I went on this trip was to find out what kind of man I wanna be?”

Abed’s voice is as unflappably consistent as ever, a welcome comfort. “Of course, it’s been your character arc as long as I’ve known you.”

Breathe in. And out. “Well, it turns out the answer is e) none of the above. I’m actually not a man at all. I’m trans.”

“Cool,” Abed replies, and it doesn’t sound like it did when she announced she was taking this trip, he sounds actually legitimately okay with it. “Cool cool cool. So, are you still going by Troy or was that for continuity purposes?”

She opens her eyes with an involuntary smile. Why did she ever doubt him? “Continuity purposes. My name is Helen.”

“Helen,” Abed repeats, and it just sounds better when he says it, like he’s savoring the taste of it, and wow she’s really been head-over-heels for him this whole time, huh. “Helen, that’s clever, I like it.”

“Thanks Abed.” She waves LeVar away when he looks over at her inquisitively. He takes the hint and continues unloading the boat and she really is gonna miss how well he’s come to understand her.

“I have to go,” Abed reveals, “we’re about to start rolling. I’ll see you soon, Helen.”

“Thanks,” she says again, “I love you.”

It’s an incredibly risky thing to say, seriously, one of these days she needs to develop a brain-to-mouth filter, but apparently it is not this day. Abed takes a full two seconds before quietly responding. “I love you too.” And then the line goes dead.

~~~

Oh god, he’s even hotter than she remembered, how is it that in 7 years it never occurred to her she was into him?? Abed pulls up in his car and steps out like the love interest in virtually every rom-com she’s ever seen and this is actually happening the trip is over. She left, sailed around the world, and came back. And he’s _still here_. He seems more relaxed, more expressive, though perhaps that’s the excitement of their imminent reunion but he looks so much better than when she last saw him, a clone of a devastated man surrounded by lava. He’s changed, she’s changed, but this, them? This hasn’t changed one bit.

She completely forgot he’s strong enough to lift her and it makes her giddy that she can have this once again. She laughs until her feet are back on solid ground. “I missed you so much,” Abed mumbles into her shoulder.

“I missed you too. Every day I saw something that made me think of you.”

“I should have told you before you left,” he says, pulling back to look at her. “But I was afraid it would make you stay and I couldn’t do that to you. I love you.”

Her heart is pounding. “I love you too, Abed.”

He watches her for a second before furrowing his brow. “I mean I’m in love with you. Have been for years.”

She laughs. She may never stop laughing again. “So do I.”

She really hopes that when couples kiss in movies, this is how they feel, like a weight has lifted and the air is sweeter and suddenly anything is possible. Kissing Abed feels unreal, like she’s still on the boat somewhere having a particularly vivid dream-sequence but she’s _done_ and she’s _home_ and Abed _is_ here and he loves her.

As they pull away to resume breathing, their eyes catch. Solely from muscle memory, they chant in unison “TROY AND ABED AR—”

They realize it at the same time. Helen’s mind starts racing as she processes this fundamental shift in their dynamic. Why did she have to pick a name with a different amount of syllables, it throws off the entire rhythm, are they still them if they’re not Troy-and-Abed, what if this is a sign, what if they can’t get back what they had, sure she wasn’t truly happy being Troy-and-Abed but can they really—

Abed must notice her inner turmoil because he places a hand on her cheek and kisses her lightly. Then, in her ear, he whispers, “Abed’s finally dating Heeeelen!”

She laughs because it’s more fun than crying, but she wants to do both because her emotions are way past capacity, filled to the brim with love for this unbelievable man who came into her world, tilted it 90 degrees, and let the gunk fall out allowing room only for truth and happiness, the man who always saw her as clear as day, who’s looked at her just like this as long as she’s known him, God how did she not realize it sooner? She kisses his cheek. “Helen’s finally dating Aaaaabed!” she whispers back.

They pull apart. He sticks out his right hand, and she sticks out hers, and with two slaps of their palms Helen of Troy has finally returned home.


End file.
